


Sentiment

by Agents_of_Sherlolly



Series: Consultant [1]
Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Divergent, Divergent Sherlock, F/M, Sherlolly - Freeform, Teen Molly, Teen Sherlock, Teenlock, divergent!lock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-02-09 11:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1981995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agents_of_Sherlolly/pseuds/Agents_of_Sherlolly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I can't shake the feeling that I could be of more use, to more people, in a hospital, taking care of people, than organizing volunteers to pick apples and repave streets.  There's a certain selflessness in dedicating your life to healing others, isn't there?  And I could do that.  I'm smart, I'm good at science.  I have gifts.  Is it self-serving of me to not want to waste them?  Wouldn't wasting them be the selfish path?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place "several generations" before the events of the Divergent series. Part one is shameless Teenlock Sherlolly, but parts two and three will contain SERIOUS MAJOR SPOILERS for Allegiant.  
> None of the characters belong to me, nor does the world the story is set in.

_"Textbook Abnegation results."_  
    The words echo through my head as I watch the blood drip on the stones.  
     _"Your results show that you are, in fact, particularly selfless."_  
    Soo Lin Yao takes her place amongst the sea of grey.  
     _"This will be an easy decision for you, then."  A condescending smile._  
    It would be easy for me stay in Abnegation, too, just like Soo Lin.  So, so easy.  Too easy.    
    Too selfish.  
   Selfless isn't staying where I've always been, because it's easy.  Selfless is my dad, pretending to be happy while the cancer ate him up from the inside, pretending that he wasn't sad and hurting, so that I wouldn't hurt and be sad.  Selfless is the doctors at the Erudite hospital who work 12-hour shifts to take care of people like him, to try to heal them.  I often wondered, as I sat with him, when the doctors and nurses spent time with their own families.  
    I don't have a family, now.  Not anymore.  
   An Erudite girl is the first faction transfer.  She's chosen Dauntless.  Her family's dismay is palpable; she is dead to them now.  Faction before blood.  
   We're standing in alphabetical order, like we always do at anything to do with school, and they're calling us up in reverse, from Soo Lin Yao to Philip Anderson.  I'm standing where I always do, in between a pretty blonde Amity girl (Isabella Ibsen) and a tall Candor boy (William Holmes).  That's how it's always been: Holmes, Hooper, Ibsen.  This time it's Ibsen, Hooper, Holmes.    
    I know very little about them, and they know even less about me.  Nobody ever pays attention to me.  I wouldn't want them to.  I'm Abnegation; I strive to keep even my own focus off of myself.  Drawing the notice of others is very much outside of my nature.  I doubt that they're even aware that we've all been in the same History class for the last three years.  William might remember that I sit next to him in Advanced Sciences, where the seats are assigned (Holmes, Hooper); but then again he might not.  It's not as if he's ever spoken to me.    
   Right now he looks bored. He usually does.  This must be so easy for him, he's the very embodiment of Candor, always spouting words with no regard for anyone else's reactions.  Like he has no filter at all.  Like he wouldn't care to use it even if he did.  Complete, open honesty.  Candor.  Easy.  
    It should be easy for me, too. I was born Abnegation, I tested Abnegation, Abnegation is where I should stay.  
    Except.  
    Except that I can't shake the feeling that I could be of more use, to more people, in a hospital, taking care of people, than organizing volunteers to pick apples and repave streets.  There's a certain selflessness in dedicating your life to healing others, isn't there?  And I could do that.  I'm smart, I'm good at science.  I have gifts.  Is it self-serving of me to not want to waste them?  Wouldn't wasting them be the selfish path?  
    It's not like I would be leaving anybody behind; I have no family.  I never knew my mother; she died in the most selfless way possible - giving birth to me.  Sacrificing her life in the act of creating mine.  And my father...well, he's gone now, too.  
    "Marjorie Hooper."  
    There is no one to watch my steps with trepidation, no one's breath to catch as I drag the knife across my palm, no one to care when my blood hits the water instead of the stones.  
    Selfless.

* * *

  
    "A stiff.  How...unexpected."  William Holmes is still next to me, waiting for the elevators.   Holmes, Hooper.  He transferred to Erudite, too.  _That_ was unexpected.  "I hope you're smart enough to make it.  Wouldn't want to end up factionless.  A little thing like you wouldn't last six months out there."  
    His voice makes me shiver.  I try not to think about why.  
    I turn to look at him properly.  Tall, gangly, but somehow not awkward.  His black suit fits him perfectly, although his white shirt seems a bit too tight..  He is loosening his black tie, unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt.  A mop of black curls tops his head; his eyes are...blue?  Green?  Gold?  All of them at once.  I've never looked at his eyes before.  
    His eyebrow quirks and I realize that I've been staring, but before I can fully recover, the elevator dings and the doors open.  I dash inside and stand in the back right corner, staring at my feet as the elevator fills.  We're probably halfway down to street level by the time I work up the courage to raise my head and look around, and when I do, I see William on the other side of the elevator, staring at me.

* * *

  
    Erudite Headquarters is a brick and glass building on Michigan Avenue, 8 stories high, flanked by two high-rises at least twice as tall.  Across the street is a stretch of land that used to be a park.  Now it's just an empty, brown expanse, butting up to the emptier, browner expanse of the marsh.  They say it used to be a lake.  It must have been nice.  
    We, the rest of the initiates and I, are led inside by a portly man in a blue suit who introduced himself as Dr. Stamford, but asked us to call him Mike.  I walk through the doors and look around and I can't help but gasp.  We're standing in a library, far larger than the library at Upper Levels.  People in blue sit at dozens of tables, working on computers, but my eyes are drawn to the books.  There must be tens of thousands of books, shelf after shelf after shelf.  I've never seen so many books in one place before - I'd hardly imagined that this many books existed.  
    I feel a surge of awe, and contentment, and certainty, that I've made the right decision.  That I'm in the right place.  
    Mike leads us to an unoccupied table with a dozen computer stations on each side.  I end up seated between a dark-haired girl in Candor black and white, and - of course - William Holmes.  I don't know why he chose the seat next to mine, it must have been force of habit.  Hooper, Holmes.  
    "The first thing we'll need you to do," Mike is saying, "is to fill out the form on the screen in front of you.  Just some basic information so we can get you into the Erudite databases."  
     _Given Name, Family Name, Preferred Name, Date of Birth, Faction of Origin, Parents' Names, Height, Weight, Eye Color, Hair Color._  
    The first two fields are easy to fill out.  _Marjorie.  Hooper._   But I pull up short at the third.  _Preferred name._ I know that people in some factions have nicknames, but I didn't think that Erudite was one of them.  It isn't a terribly logical thing, a nickname - why name somebody one thing and then call them something else?  And Erudite is all about logic.  
    "It's in case you want to change your name," a low voice murmurs.  I turn to my left and see William looking at me, yet again. "Sometimes people like to change their names when they change factions."  He nods towards his screen, as if inviting me to take a look.  I shift in my chair to get a better view.  
     _Given Name: William. Family Name; Holmes. Preferred Name: Sherlock._  
    "Sherlock?"  
    "My middle name."  
    I frown.  "We don't have middle names in Abnegation."  
  "We don't have them in Candor, either, generally speaking.  My parents are a bit...eccentric."  He smirks, and I can't help the smile that starts to lift the corner of my mouth. He looks back at his terminal, and I do the same.  _Preferred Name_.  
    He chose a new name.  New faction, new life, new name.  You can choose a new name.  I can choose a new name.  _Marjorie was your mum's name.  She wanted to call you Molly, but I couldn't bear the thought of there not being a Marjorie Hooper here in Abnegation._  
   There isn't a Marjorie Hooper in Abnegation now, no matter what I choose to call myself.  
    I put my hands back on the keyboard and type five letters with my right hand.  
 _Molly._  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not Brit-picked, because Post-Apocalyptic Chicago.

    My eyes open and I stare at the ceiling in confusion for just a moment before I remember where I am. I run my hand over the sky blue painted wall and try to will into being the sense of calm that the color is supposed to inspire in me.  It doesn’t work.  
    My new roommate Meena is snoring gently across the room, sprawled on her back with her arm hanging over the side of her bed. Her comforter is bunched up by her feet, and her nightgown is riding up to her thigh.  How can she even sleep when she’s exposed like that? I guess it doesn’t bother her.  A girl raised in Candor probably doesn’t feel the need to hide herself away.  _Immodesty is distracting, and therefore, selfish._  
    I pull my blanket a little higher, tucking it under my chin.  
    I realize what woke me up - the light panels in the ceiling are gradually brightening.  Is this how they wake up in Erudite - gradually, gently?  It seems unnecessarily posh to me.  I’ve always woken up to the jangling of an alarm clock.  
    The lights are almost at full brightness now.  Meena takes a deep breath and throws her arm over her face.  “Mmmmmmpphhh.”  
    “I think we’re supposed to get up now, Meena.”  
    “Mmmph nmmmph nmmmmph.”  
    "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that.”  
    Meena’s arm shifts, and one hazel eye peers out at me. “What time is it?”  
    “Um…I don’t know.  Let me check.”  I roll over and reach for my watch on the nightstand.  I don’t mention that she is still wearing hers.  She’s obviously not fully awake, and pointing out that she’s spoken without thinking first would be rude. “It’s seven.”  
    “Well then I guess we should be getting up if we want to have breakfast before class.”  And just like that, she’s up and out of bed, opening drawers and rummaging through the clothes she picked out last night.  
    It was strange, and overwhelming, having so many choices.  I’ve always worn the same grey outfit, every day.  I almost bought five of the exact same blue outfit with my allotment, but Meena wouldn’t let me.  I ended up getting three slightly different pairs of pants, two cardigans (one dark, one light), and five different patterned shirts.  All of them blue, of course.  Blue is Erudite’s color, just like red and yellow are Amity’s, and black belongs to Dauntless.  Meena was wearing black and white together when she walked through the front doors of Erudite yesterday.  Black and white, truth and lies; there are no gray areas in Candor.  
    Abnegation is nothing but gray.  
    I've gathered my trousers and shirt and am changing my pants under the covers, when Meena simply pulls her nightgown over her head and drops it on the floor.  All she’s wearing now are knickers, and soon they’re on the floor too.  I'm probably blushing as I look away, and she must see it, because she laughs.  “Oh, honestly, Molly.  Don’t be such a Stiff.  We’ve got the same parts after all, right?”  
    I frown.  “Stiff” is what the rest of the factions call the Abnegation, and I’m mostly used to it, but it still stings a bit.  ”Yes, well, I still don't feel entirely...comfortable...with undressing in front of somebody I've just met."  
    "Well, we won't be strangers for long, will we?”  Meena has knickers and a shirt on now, and I’m able to look at her again.  “The alphabet has decided that we should be friends, and who are we to argue?”  
    The two of us were thrown together for no reason other than that our first names are next to each other in alphabetical order.  Our last names are no longer relevant; the faction is our new family.  Which doesn’t mean much to me; I haven’t had a family for almost a year now, anyway.  But I could tell, when Meena asked me last night if my dad would be upset that I’d changed my name, that she was keenly feeling the loss of her own family.  
    He probably would be upset, if he knew.  But that’s neither here nor there, now.

 

* * *

  
  
    The classroom is dim and smells like wood and floor polish and chalk.  It’s not at all like the gleaming white laboratories that we saw on the tour yesterday afternoon.  “Of course there’s more to Erudite than science and research,” Mike had said, “but it is the majority of what we do.  That’s why many of our labs are here in the main building.”  
    The classrooms for post-choosing education are in a building behind Main Headquarters, through the back door and across an alley.  We call it “The Shops” because that’s what the letters on the front of the building say. Lots of buildings in the City are like that; little whispered hints, just barely telling the story of how things used to be.  
    I curl my toes inside my new navy blue leather flats; they’re not broken in yet, and they’re starting to pinch.  The pain grounds me.    
    I open my standard-issue cobalt-blue backpack and dig out the fluffy sky-blue cardigan I picked out at the shop last night - it’s chilly in this classroom.  I pull the sweater on and tug on the cuffs of my blue and gray striped blouse to straighten them.  I’m glad that I was able to find a shirt that had some gray in it; it’s comforting, almost like hanging on to a bit of my old life.  I’m not the only one with one foot in and one foot out; Meena, for all her insistence that we go out and obtain Erudite clothing immediately (“Not because the clothes you’re wearing now are incredibly unflattering - although they are - but because we’re Erudite now, we need Erudite clothes”), is wearing her old Candor black shoes.  Across the room, I see the two Dauntless transfers, one with green hair, both with tattoos peeking out from under their shirts.  We all bear the marks of where we came from.  
    William - Sherlock - strides in just before class starts and flops dramatically into a chair. We haven’t even started yet, and he already looks bored.  
    The teacher is a short, plump woman who looks like she's forcing herself to be cheerful.  She'd probably rather be anywhere else but here.  I wonder how she got roped into teaching this class.  "Introduction to Erudite", she writes on the chalkboard.  "Johanna Malcolm".  
    "Welcome, Initiates, to Erudite.  My name is Johanna Malcolm and I'll be teaching  you the basics of living in Erudite.  Before we begin, are there any questions?"  
    “Why are the Erudite-born initiates here?”  
    It’s a good question.  It’s not one of the Erudite-born asking the question, though - it’s Sherlock.  
    “For the purpose of fostering a sense of unity amongst you.  All initiates take the same classes, regardless of where they came from.”  
    “That doesn’t seem very logical.”      
      “Nevertheless, that’s the way it’s done.  Anything else?"  
    "Is there a reason why it's kept so unbearably cold in here?"  
    "Bring a coat next time.  Nobody else is bothered by it."  
    That’s not quite true; I felt cold upon entering the room, but I had put my sweater on and kept my mouth shut.  I continue to keep my mouth shut now.  Sherlock scowls and doesn't break eye contact with the teacher as he reaches into his bag and pulls out a sapphire-blue scarf, deliberately looping it around his neck.  
    “Alright then, now seems like as good a time as any to go over the dress code.”  
    Sherlock's head snaps up and a crinkle appears between his eyebrows.  "Dress code?"  
    "Yes, that's what I said.  As long as you are an initiate, you will adhere to the student dress code.  Once you have been made a full member of the faction, you will adhere to the dress code of your particular job.  
    "Men will wear a collared shirt and a tie.  Ladies will wear a modest top and either trousers or a skirt that falls at least to your knees.  Hair must be a natural color," her eyes skim briefly over the two Dauntless transfers, "and no piercings except for ears.  If you have any others, facial or otherwise, you will need to take them out.”  
    The Dauntless boy with "natural colored" black hair - Tod, I think his name is? - gives a tiny, resigned sigh, like he knew this was coming but hoped it never would.  
    "Oh, honestly, how is that logical?" Every head in the room snaps to Sherlock. "Nobody can even see a tongue piercing, why should it matter if he keeps it in?”  
    Tod's eyes narrow. “How did you know I had a tongue piercing, if you can’t even see it?”  
    “The way you hold your mouth," Sherlock waves a hand dismissively. "Obvious.”  
    “If it’s so obvious, then you’ve disproved your own point," chimes in an Erudite-born boy who I'm pretty sure is named Vincent.  
    Sherlock rolls his eyes and drops his head back. “I meant that it was obvious to me.  That hardly means that it’s obvious to everyone.”  
    “It doesn’t matter," Johanna breaks in, "it’s a faction rule.” She glares at Sherlock with a look that clearly states that the subject is closed.  
    "It's okay, I'll take it out, I'm not bothered, honestly," Tod insists.  
    "But it's not logical.” He really doesn't know when to quit, does he?  
    Johanna, apparently, is thinking the same thing. “I’m sorry, what’s your name?”  
    “Sherlock." He sits up,straight and looks her in the eye. "Sherlock Holmes.”  
    “…Holmes?” her face goes slack with shock for a moment, before she composes herself.  “And you transferred from Candor?”  He nods.  “May I see you out in the hallway?"  Sherlock smirks, rises and strides to the door.  Johanna follows with her back straight and her head high.  She closes the door behind them.  
    The room erupts into a series of exasperated sighs and groans and comments.  
    "Oh, finally."  
    "Does he really have to comment on everything?"  
    "Well, what else would you expect from a Candor smartass?"  
    I look at Meena, afraid that her feelings have been hurt.  She shrugs.  "What?  I left Candor for a reason, Molly.  Well, a lot of reasons, really, but that was one of them: the smartassery. And he’s right about Sherlock.  Even the other Candor don’t like him.”  
    “Really?" I ask. "Why not?  Isn’t he just being…honest?”  
    “There’s a difference between honesty and just being a dick. Honesty means that what you choose to say is true, not that you just let words dribble out of your mouth, unchecked and careless. Especially when you notice as much as he does.  It makes people uncomfortable.”  
    I’d always figured that his bluntness was a typically Candor trait, but now that I think about it, he was the only one who ever told a teacher her husband was cheating on her, or that her dog would be healthier if she altered its diet, or that the pancakes she’d eaten for breakfast had been slightly undercooked.  
    “Well, maybe we’ll all be lucky and he’ll get himself chucked out of the faction,” Vincent says.  
    Emily, a short blonde Erudite-born girl, scoffs.  “Like that’s ever going to happen.  Didn’t you hear when he said his name?”  
    I don’t know what kind of meaning his name could possibly have here, but I did see how Johanna reacted to it.  I’m about to ask Emily what she means, when the door opens and Johanna returns, appearing somewhat flustered.  Sherlock follows her into the room, the smirk still plastered on his face, and returns to his sprawled position in his chair.  He catches me looking at him and actually winks.    
    “Right,” Johanna says.  “So.  The Erudite Faction Manifesto.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> F'ing finally! Probably wasn't a good idea to post Chapter One a week before I went back to school for the first time in 12 years. ;) I was super stuck on Chapter Two, but things should hopefully go a bit more smoothly from this point on - it'll be less than 5 months between chapters, at least! And we will see some actual Sherlolly interaction in Chapter Three, I promise.  
> 


	3. Chapter 3

    “I can’t wait until we finish up this initiation semester and move on to actual job training,” Emily says as we walk down the hall to the lab classroom.  “Then you medical people can go on with the dissecting and all that, while we future educators can work on graphing sentences and other _normal, non-gross_ activities.”  
    Meena rolls her eyes.  “Well, you know what they say, Em, it ‘fosters a sense of unity among us’.”  
    Emily lets out a derisive snort.  “Yeah, nothing bonds you to your faction-mates like _slicing apart a pig heart_.”  
    “The faction that flays together, stays together.” I can’t help but giggle at my own joke.    
    They both stop walking and stare at me.  “That’s…” Emily is looking even greener than before, “that’s really disturbing.”  
    Just then, Sherlock pushes through our little group - we’re blocking the door - and instead of telling us to get out of the way _for God’s sake_ , he says, “Don’t make jokes, Molly.  It’s really not your area.”  
    “He’s right, you know,” Meena punches my arm before she goes into the room after him, dragging Emily with her.  I wonder if she knows how much it hurts when she does that.  “Come on, Em, let’s just get this over with, okay?  I’ll do the actual cutting if it makes you feel any better.”  
    Of course he's right.  Nobody wants to hear my stupid morbid jokes.  _Don’t inflict your sense of humor on those who don’t share it.  It’s selfish_.  I take a deep breath, enter the classroom, and drop my bag on the floor next to my chair.  I try very, very hard not to look up at my lab partner as I take my seat.  I was secretly thrilled when we were assigned to work together - Holmes, Hooper - thrilled and _terrified_.  We'd somehow made it through Upper Levels without ever being assigned to work together; I was thankful for that because he had reduced more than one lab partner to tears.  But still, he’s so _smart_.  I could learn so much by working with him.    
    There’s a heart in the middle of each table.  You can tell who’s _not_ planning on going into medicine based on the looks on their faces - disgust, apprehension, panic -  but I'm finding it hard to be anything other than fascinated.  It's strange to not have to tamp down my curiosity.  Curiosity is supposed to be a foreign concept to the Abnegation, but I'm not Abnegation anymore.  I'm Erudite, where curiosity is not only tolerated, but encouraged.  Required, even.  
    Sherlock holds out the scalpel. “I’ll read the instructions, you make the cuts?”  
    "What...really?"  I didn't think he'd deign to let anybody else do the work.  Yesterday’s lab was Chemistry, and he didn’t let me touch a single piece of equipment.    
    "You're good with a scalpel, Mar- Molly.  You did the best work in the whole class when we dissected the grasshoppers in Advanced Sciences.  Here.”  
    He's still holding the scalpel, his arm awkwardly extended, but I'm frozen, my eyes on his.  "You almost called me Marjorie."  
    He blinks and looks down.  "Well, it _was_ your name until a couple of days ago."  
    "Right.  And we'd never spoken until a couple of days ago."  He knows me as Molly.  Doesn't he?  
    I almost don't hear the reply he directs to the scalpel still in his hand. "Yeah, we had."  
    “What was that?"  I'm not entirely sure I just heard him say what I think I heard him say.  It was barely a breath.  
    He sighs and looks up, not at me, but at a spot over my left shoulder.  "We'd...spoken.  Before."  
    I scan through my memories, trying to find somewhere, anywhere, where he stands out, but there's nothing there.  Nothing before Choosing Day, the elevator, the first time our eyes met. "When?"  
    "I don't know, at..." he shakes his head as if to clear it, "...some point, we must have.  We _were_ seated next to each other an awful lot."  He finally looks at me again and once again holds out the scalpel, and whatever vulnerability I thought I may have seen in his face is gone.  I take the scalpel.  
    “ ‘Look for the coronary arteries, especially the anterior inter ventricular artery.  The right atrium will be on the left and behind and the left atrium will be on the right and in front.’  Well, so far so obvious, let’s take a look, shall we?”  Sherlock reads so fast I almost can’t keep up with him.    
    “Well, there’s the right atrium, and there’s the left,” I begin, and suddenly he’s standing behind me, watching me over my shoulder.  “What are you doing?”  
    “Well, just because you’re better at cutting up dead things doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t get a good view, too, don’t you think?  ‘Locate the aorta and the pulmonary trunk.’ “  
    “What?”  
    “That’s the next step, Molly, do pay attention.  Locate the aorta and the pulmonary trunk.”  
    “Oh, right.  Here, and here.”  
    When the instructions he’s giving me finally start to involve actually cutting, I slip into a state of focus that _almost_ allows me to ignore the fact that I can feel his breath on the side of my neck. If this was Abnegation, he wouldn’t be standing so close to me, because he’d know that he was making me uncomfortable.  
    Then again, if this was Abnegation, I wouldn’t be dissecting a heart.  
    “ ‘Open the left ventricle.  Orient the heart again with the apex facing away.  Starting at the apex, cut along the right side to the left atrium.  Lift the auricle and cut through the atrioventricular groove.  Cut carefully as much as is necessary to open the left ventricle.’  You’re stopping - why are you stopping?”  
    I frown as I probe at the splayed-open ventricle.  “Well I know the left ventricular wall is supposed to be quite thick, but this ventricle seems awfully…enlarged, to me.  It’s completely out of proportion to the one in the diagram.”  
    He leans further over my shoulder to look at the diagram on the table.  “Maybe the person who drew the diagram is an idiot.  Most people are.”  
    “Maybe - ” I turn to look at him and _oh my_ his face is close to mine. I look down to avoid his eyes and notice that his arms are on either side of me, hands resting on the table.  Wow.  His hands are _big_.  I try to swallow the lump that’s in my throat, and he finally picks up his hands and takes a step back, clearing his throat.  I close my eyes and take a deep breath.  _Focus, Molly_.    
    “Or maybe…” I cut into the aorta. “Aha!  I thought so.”  
    “What?”  Sherlock darts around to the the other side of the table; I guess he finally realized that hovering over my shoulder maybe wasn’t the best way to go about getting a good look at the dissection.  
    “The aortic valve is supposed to have three leaflets, this one has two.”  
    Sherlock frowns and leans in to inspect the heart.  “What does that mean?”  
    “Bicuspid Aortic Valve Disease…it’s congenital, usually leads to an enlarged left ventricle because it has to work so much harder.”  
    His brow is furrowed when he looks up at me.  “How…how do you know that?”  
    “Oh, I…I’ve done a lot of reading.”  
    His eyes narrow as he straightens to his full height - he’s several inches taller than I am - and I can see the gears turning behind his eyes as he scans me.  I try not to shrink into myself too much, but it’s hard, because I’ve seen him do this, I’ve seen him look at people like this and then tear them apart.  After a moment, his face lights up as if he’s had an idea, his head quirks to one side, and he says the last thing I was expecting.  “You really are good at this, Molly.  You should consider forensic pathology.  Autopsies.  You'd be good at it."  
    I frown.  “I…I want to help people, though.  Heal them."  
    He quirks an eyebrow. "Do you really? Or is that just what you think you should do?"  
    I don't have an answer to that.  


* * *

  
  
    "Hmmm, the pork or the pasta?  Considering what we just spent our Biology lab cutting up, I'd go for the pasta if I were you."  
    He’s snuck up on me, in line at the cafeteria.  I try not to jump out of my skin and fail spectacularly.  “Oh!  It's you.”    
     _What was that?_   That high-pitched, breathy exclamation that tumbled past my lips before I could stop it…where did that even come from?  I give him my best approximation of a defiant look and take the pork.  He raises an eyebrow, but looks almost impressed.  
    "And what are you having?" I ask, noticing that he's taking neither.  
    "Not hungry.  I rarely am.  Digestion slows me down."  He takes a cup of the fizzy brown drink, though, after he puts one on my tray.  
    "Whats this?" I ask  
    "Carbonated water, sugar syrup, flavoring, coloring, caffeine.  A special Erudite treat.  You'll like it."  
    "...Thanks.  I think.  It doesn't sound like much."  
    “Trust me.” He flashes a smirky half-smile at me, and I can’t help but smile back.  
    "You really should eat something,” I tell him.  He’s so thin, which I guess could be because he’s at that awkward gangly stage of adolescence; but I’ve never actually seen him eat, either.    
    He sighs and takes a cookie.  It's better than nothing, I suppose.  I walk to an empty table in the corner - normally I sit with Meena, but today she's at her meeting with Mike about her research focus - and to my surprise, he follows me.  The few times I've seen him in here, he's sat by himself.  
    “Meena's at her meeting with Mike?”  He’s playing with his straw, putting his finger over the top to create a vacuum, lifting it up out of the cup, taking his finger away and letting the drink flow back down.  
    “About her research focus, yes.  She’s going into medicine, probably OB/GYN, she wants to deliver babies…but you already knew that, I bet.”  Babbling.  Why am I babbling?  
    Sherlock shrugs.  “She did go on about babies all the time.”  They don’t seem to be friends, but this isn’t the first time one of them has said something that’s made me wonder how well they knew each other when they were growing in in Candor.  It’s not my place to ask, though.  That would be prying, and that would be selfish.  So I stick to a safe topic.  
    “And let me guess, you’re going to do chemistry?”  
    "The serums, most likely.  And you’ll be doing medicine, but you haven’t decided what kind, yet.”  
    “Of course you’re right, as always.”  
    He drops the straw back into the cup and rests his hands on the table; his eyes bore into mine.  ”I was being serious, you know.  I think you'd make a wonderful pathologist."  
    I look down at my plate and smush the mashed potatoes down with my fork.  ”Do you really think so?"  
    "Yes, I do."  
    "But...but that's not why I came here...to do something that I would enjoy.  I came here to do something that would be _helpful_."  
    He leans back in his chair, smirking.  ”So you _would_ enjoy it then."  
    He's got me there.  
    "Pathology is helpful.  Just in a different way.  And besides, you're not a Stiff anymore.  You're allowed to do things for your own enjoyment now."  
    "I guess I don't really feel like that.  Like I'm not Abnegation anymore.  Not yet, at least."  And I don't. I've spent the last three days waking up in the morning and going to class, just like I always have - I'm treading water, waiting for something feel different, to _change_.  
    "Well in that case...I do think that pathology would be the best use of your talents.  Isn't that why you transferred?  So as not to selfishly waste your talents?”  
    I put down my fork and cross my arms.  ”How do you know that?”  
    “The same way that I know that you knew about bicuspid aortic valve disease because you read up on heart disease when your father was sick.”  He shrugs almost…dismissively.  “I simply observe.”  
    Oh, _come on_.  There’s got to be more to it than that.  “That’s it, you just…observe.”  
    “Yes.  I observe everything.  From what I observe, I deduce everything.  When I've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how mad it might seem, must be the truth.”  It would sound absolutely absurd if I hadn’t seen the accuracy of his deductions countless times.  I still don’t understand how he does it, though.  
    “Well then.  What do you observe about…him?”  I indicate a man sitting at a table across the room.  
    Sherlock’s eyes narrow as he takes in the man’s light hair, blue sweater, sensible shoes.  He leans in across the table and speaks in an low, urgent voice.  “Small tattoo behind his ear, so Dauntless-born; transferred two…no, three years ago due to an injury that would have prevented him from participating fully in initiation - the sole of one shoe is worn down more than the other, he walks with a limp.  He’s recently completed his medical classroom training and is just starting his internship - white lab coat instead of blue means medical, not research; but no name embroidered on the chest means he's not completed his training. The new class of interns moved up at the same time that we started our post-choosing education, so, new intern it is, which means he transferred in three years ago.”  
    I’m staring at the the man, stunned.  All I see is a shortish blond man in a white lab coat. Maybe if I ask him to do that again I’ll be able to follow along.  
    “And the woman he’s talking to?”  
    “You mean _hitting on_?”  
    “What?  How can you tell?”  
    “You see how he’s leaning in towards her? His elbows are practically on her side of the table - he’s trying to create intimacy by invading her personal space.  And look how she’s blushing.  He’s hitting on her, and he’s _good_ at it.”  
    I turn, eyebrows raised, a response on my lips - something about how maybe he’s actually _bad_ at it, so bad that she’s embarrassed for him - but the words evaporate when I come face to face with him, and see the gold flecks in his eyes, made so much more noticeable than usual by the sunlight streaming in through the window next to us.   I suck in a breath and lean back in my seat, casting about the room for a distraction - anything to keep him from focusing on my pinkening cheeks.  
    There’s a man in a 3-piece suit by the door, scanning the crowd impassively.  He doesn’t look like he belongs in a cafeteria.  He looks like he belongs behind a desk somewhere, or in an armchair by a fire, with a tea tray at his elbow and a cigar in his hand.  
    “What about him?” I ask.     Sherlock’s eyes narrow.  “Smartest man in Erudite.  Or highest IQ, at any rate, and therefore next in line to lead the faction, unless someone smarter comes along, which is unlikely.  Cold, conceited, the very definition of unfeeling…” at that moment, the man seems to find what he's looking for, or _who_ , and he walks towards _us_.  “…and he’s a rubbish big brother.”  
    "Wait, what?”  I look back at Sherlock, whose face has gone almost completely blank.  
    “Will.”  
    “It’s Sherlock now, Mycroft.”  
    "Yes, I was informed."  
    "Yet you called me Will."  
    He shrugs dismissively.  ”I like it better."  
    "So did Mummy, apparently.”  
    “Yes.  And how is Mummy?”  
    “Horribly distant since you left, thank you very much for asking.”  
    I feel like I’m back at lower levels, watching the Amity children playing catch with a bouncy ball.  The speed of their banter is breathtaking.    
    Mycroft turns his gaze on me then, and I know how it feels to be analyzed, judged, and found lacking.    
    “So very nice to meet you, Miss…”  
    “Hooper.  Molly Hooper.”      
    “Ah, yes, Miss Hooper.  The unexpected transfer from Abnegation.”  
    Unexpected?  What on earth does he mean by _that_? Does…does he have access to my aptitude test results?  They’re supposed to be confidential.  I look to Sherlock, but his face is still carefully impassive.  Mycroft is probably expecting a response from me, so I squeak out a “Yes, sir.”  
    “Welcome to Erudite, Molly.”  He turns back to Sherlock.  “I do hope you’re ready to apply yourself, William.  I don’t fancy the idea of cleaning up your messes.”  
    “Its. Sherlock.”  The words are defiant, but he is staring at his hands on the table.  
    "Hmm. A new name for a new life. How…” his face scrunches up in a clear expression of distaste, “sentimental.”  
    Sherlock’s eyes widen and he looks almost…hurt?  Scared? Offended? Suddenly vulnerable, at any rate.  He closes his eyes and gives his head a little shake, and when his eyes open they are even colder than before, and his jaw is set - but he’s still not looking at Mycroft.  
    “Well, this has been _charming_ , but I have places to be, I’m sure you understand.  Sherlock…Molly.”  Mycroft nods to each of us in turn, and then turns on his heel and leaves the way he came in.  I suddenly feel like I can breathe again.  
    Sherlock, though, looks like he’s barely holding himself together.  
    “That’s your brother?” I ask tentatively, not sure what else to say.  
    Sherlock rolls his eyes - he literally rolls his eyes, like that was the stupidest thing anyone has ever said.  “Obviously.”  Without another word, without a goodbye or a wave or even a glance in my direction, he gets up from the table, and walks away in the opposite direction from his brother.  He stalks through the exit and he is gone.  
    His drink is still on the table, his cookie is untouched.  
    And I suddenly feel so very, very small.    


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a scientist, I'm a pastry chef, but I have good google-fu. The pig heart dissection lab instructions come from http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/08/wnekoba/PigDissection.pdf
> 
> I know that the Erudite fizzy drink is eventually described as being lemon-flavored, but I choose to think of it as cola. Let's pretend that there's more than one flavor available.

**Author's Note:**

> Come play on tumblr, my username is lavender-lily. :)


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